Tomato starts and other seedlings...

With the arrival of May and warm weather comes the beginning of the summer growing season here in the Baltimore area. In a few weeks I will begin transplanting some veggie starts into my backyard and community gardens. Jared graciously provided me with some tomato starts (Big Boy I think) about a week ago and I have been keeping them under fluorescent lights and putting a fan on them for an hour a day. I've put them outside as well when the weather has been warm. They are coming along nicely and seem to be getting bigger everyday. Jared gave them to me about a week ago in small peat pots so when I got them home I put them into larger red cups, planting them to just below the leaves so that they could establish deeper roots.

I also attempted starting some herbs from seed, however this venture hasn't worked out as well as I hoped. I started parsley, oregano, thyme, basil, and chives from seed. The chives came up and grew fairly well and I have since transplanted them into my garden. The oregano germinated and fizzled out. The thyme did OK; I was able to transplant one peat pot into a standard size flower pot and now that plant is doing really well. The parsley and basil are doing OK but are small. I am keeping them outside for now and will probably transplant into larger containers soon.

My grandfather gave me two young blackberry plants that were purchased via mail order. They are coming along quite nicely. I will be transplanting them into my backyard in a few weeks to supplement my current blackberry production. I'm sure in a few years I'll be up to my ears in blackberries.